Philosophy
Part II Wittgenstein & His Successors: Anscombe
This is the web page for the Philosophy Part 2 course on Elizabeth Anscombe given by Richard Holton at the University of Cambridge, Michaelmas term 2025. This page provides links to papers and other texts that may be useful and to pdf versions of the handouts. If you have suggestions or comments, please let me know by emailing me at rjh221@cam.ac.uk
This course will be focussed on Anscombe's 1957 monograph Intention, but there will be some excursions into material in some of her articles. There have been several introductions to Intention published in recent years. Of these I'd recommend Rachel Wiseman’s volume in the Routledge Philosophy Guidebook series and John Schwenkler's in the Oxford Guides to Philosophy series.
Lectures
Lecture 1: Background, methodology and the three heads
Primary
- Anscombe, Intention, Sections 1-4
Secondary
- Anscombe, 'Modern Moral Philosophy'
- Wiseman, The Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Anscombe’s Intention
Lecture 2: Intentional Action
Primary
- Anscombe, Intention, Sections 5-21
Secondary
- Moran & Stone, 'Anscombe on the Expression of Intention' in Ford, Hornsby & Stoutland, Essays on Anscombe's Intention.
Lecture 3: The Intention With Which
Primary
- Anscombe, Intention, Sections 22-45
Secondary
- The Horizon documentary The Man Who Lost His Body about Ian Waterman
Lecture 4: Intention Dependence, Knowing What We Are Doing
Primary
- Anscombe, Intention, Sections 46 ff
Secondary
-
Anscombe, 'Causality and Determinism'.